JAKARTA (RIAUPOS.CO) – Astronomers have been shocked again by the discovery of a new planet that challenges scientific understanding.
Quoted from Space on Sunday (3/12), astronomers have discovered a massive extrasolar planet or ‘exoplanet’ orbiting a very cool dwarf star.
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The existence of the planet, named LHS 3154 b, has shaken scientists’ theories about the formation of planets and planetary systems.
The research by a team of astronomers was published in the journal Science on Thursday (30/11).
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Located about 51 light years from Earth, LHS 3154 b is 13 times larger than Earth and equivalent to the mass of the ice giant Neptune in the human solar system.
However, the planet orbits a small dwarf star, LHS 3154, which has nine times less mass than the planet.
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The mass ratio between LHS 3154 b and its star is 100 times greater than the mass ratio between the Earth and the Sun.
This is something that researchers consider impossible.
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Therefore, this is the first discovery that a planet with such a mass has been discovered orbiting a smaller star in the universe.
“This discovery really confirms how little we know about the universe,” said Suvrath Mahadevan, a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State University.
“We didn’t expect there to be a planet this big around a low mass star,” he continued.
The discovery also challenges the principle of star and planet formation, which states that stars form when huge clouds of gas and dust become too dense, then collapse under their own gravity.
The collapse left the star surrounded by a protoplanetary disk containing the remaining material. Scientists believe that planets then formed from the remains of this material.
However, LHS 3154 b has a very heavy planetary core, requiring the protoplanetary disk to contain a lot of dense material.
This caused researchers to revisit their understanding of how planets and stars form.
Source: Jawapos.com
Editor: E Sulaiman
2023-12-03 11:15:00
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